Why our rebrand is about more of what works

It has been eleven years since we set up shop in an aircraft hangar in a field, with a lot of enthusiasm, not much phone reception, and a big idea: to create a sustainable, high-quality exhibitions and events company that would balance people and profit against environmental impact to make a positive difference.

In that time, a lot has changed for us: our offices have got bigger and better (thankfully), and international. Our numbers have increased tenfold, and so have our clients. We’ve done amazing work in almost every country in the world, as well as huge amounts on our own doorstep here in the UK and the USA. And we’ve strengthened our expertise in the aerospace and pharmaceutical industries, while also learning from other sectors and branching out into new ones, including our recent work at baby and child show, Kind & Jugend.

Given all these changes, you might think that our recent rebranding project was also about change: bringing our brand and identity up to date to match the new reality of what Ignition has become. But we don’t think of it like that: we feel that as the years have gone by we have become more and more focused on our founding principles of intelligent design (we think before we do) sustainability and delivering an outstanding service. We were heartened by how clearly that came through in all the research that underpinned this project, and by how strongly our people felt about those principles.

So why spend time, money and effort on a branding project if nothing fundamental has changed? Here’s why:

1. Re-focus

Alignment doesn’t come from the top down, but from the bottom up. We spend all our time protecting our customers’ brands, which sometimes makes it difficult to find time to stop and reflect on our own brand. Talking about it with all our people is a great opportunity to ensure that we’re still fully focused on our values, and that they’re still appropriate for the times in which we live.

2. Re-state

We’ve lived and breathed our values since day one and chosen to work with people who do the same. Our clients know how we work and what kinds of principles we hold dear, but if we want to reach a wider audience, we need to be able to express them, and our services, in ways anyone can understand, even if they don’t work with us (yet). To that end, we’ve kept them simple and to the point – EPIC.

Entrepreneurial Spirit: We share ideas freely and even celebrate so-called failures as learning and growing experiences.

Personable Approach: No hierarchies. No egos. No divas. In business, we believe that people buy people and we always advocate for human-to-human interactions.

Intelligent Thinking: Thinking comes before doing for us. Every time.

Collaborative Working: The best minds need to work together towards the same goal – whether that’s clients, colleagues, industry experts or beyond.

3. Re-energise

Even the most productive teams can need a boost, so we’ve taken the opportunity to refresh how we provide that extra lift. A new social club and our internal EPIC awards (where we reward employees who have truly lived and breathed our values – our Annual Winner gets the equivalent of a £1,000 prize and plaque on the EPICs Hall of Fame!) are just a couple of the ways we’re continuing to emphasise the importance of our people. While our refreshed visual identity is designed to perk up all our communications with a bright, clean look. And we’re not finished yet! Watch this space for more developments in the very near future.

We’ve always believed that if a business has a clear purpose, then it will attract the right people, whether as partners, clients, suppliers or colleagues. This project has been an invaluable vindication of that belief and provides the platform for another ten years’ dedication to our goal of an intelligent, sustainable and high-quality business that puts people and planet ahead of profit.